"Il Mio Ragazzo" Moves In!

If you've been reading the blog regularly, by now you should know Ramòn. Just in case you haven't, he's one of the two MIT interns working in Pisa for the summer. We've been hanging out a lot. It's good to have a friend with whom I can speak English at a normal speed, especially one who's interested in exploring Italy with me. Ramòn's problem: the dorm where he's been living closes in August (much like everything else in this entire country). It's not so easy to find a room to rent in Pisa for just a month, not unless you have some Italian friends who are going on vacation for the month. Conveniently, I happen to have three of them. Ramòn and I chatted with my roommates and worked out an arrangement for him to rent a room in my apartment for the month. The only catch: he won't be entering into our contract. Therefore, we needed a back-up story in case the landlord noticed a funny guy hanging around a lot. The solution: il mio ragazzo! (translation: my boyfriend!) So I'm not single anymore... for now. But somehow I don't foresee things going so well. In fact, I'm predicting a break up in about a month. Hahaha. :)

Visiting the Birthplaces of Pizza and the Catholic Church

Last Friday afternoon I caught up with Ramòn as we both power-walked across Pisa for the 5:45pm train to Rome. Dark had already fallen upon the city as we passed the illuminated Vatican and slowed to a halt in Rome. Kristyn met us at the train station and surprised us with a bit of news: Saturday morning she’d be heading out to Naples, the birthplace of pizza. Although we’d planned to spend the weekend in Rome, traveling to Naples is much easier from Rome than from Pisa, so we decided to tag along.

After spending Saturday morning on another train, we stepped out into the summer sun of southern Italy. As collegians in the birthplace of perhaps the most famous collegiate staple food, we simply had to find some pizza. We dined at Pizzeria di Matteo, reputed to be one of the best pizzerias in Naples. The food was heavenly and the prices incredibly low. (Southern Italy, it turns out, is much more affordable than Tuscany.) After lunch we went to the National Archeological Museum where we saw many ancient statues, vases, and objects from daily life. I particularly loved the section of the museum dedicated to the mosaics, including the famous one of young Alexander the Great in battle, a work I’ve been seeing in textbooks for years. We took a peek in the Gabinetto Segreto: Let’s just say that the Puritanical culture of the US wouldn’t quite see eye-to-eye with that of ancient Rome.

We traversed Naples towards the Castel dell’Uovo (Egg Castle), so named because legend states that Virgil placed an egg in the foundation of the castle which, if broken, would cause the collapse of the entire city. The castle is located on the Bay of Naples, in sight of Mount Vesuvius. Sitting on the walls lining the castle bridge, we watched the water sparkle as the sun set into the Neapolitan hillside. While twilight descended, we passed through the Piazza del Plebiscito, which boasted an impressive display of architecture. On one side of the piazza sits the Palazzo Reale. Facing it, the Chiesa San Francesco di Paola, which lit up brilliantly at night. After meandering down a few streets, we settled at the Hosteria Toledo for a three-hour-long Italian meal. The restaurant had a wonderfully friendly atmosphere and the food was excellent. On our way to the station, we even saw some fireworks! That night, I slept soundly on the train back to Rome.

We spent the next day simply walking around Rome and soaking in all the sights. The architecture on the normal buildings lining the streets was much more ornate than what I'd seen in Italy thus far. It actually reminded me a lot of Paris. Wandering from piazza to piazza, we found our way to the Pantheon, the Piazza Navona—home of the Fontana del Quatro Fiumi, Fontana del Moro, and Fontana del Nettuno (pictured below), and finally the Colosseum. Along the way we spotted the ruins of some Roman baths. I was excited to find the area full of stray cats, and really wanted to take one home as a souvenir. (nb: no felines were ultimately stashed in my luggage.) Rome has decided to rebuild part of the Colosseum, but it looks pretty weird right now because the material they're using doesn't exactly match the old stone of the ancient architecture. It somehow felt eerie to me to look on at this beautiful construction and to think of how many people and animals met their end within those walls. Nonetheless, I smiled and got the classic tourist shot, as you can see. There was so much to visit, but as a storm loomed overhead, we realized the day had to be cut short. We grabbed some gelati and found shelter under a covered patio before the skies opened up. Work awaited us all the following morning, so we had to catch our train. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and certainly can’t be seen in one either. However, this won’t be my last trip to the birthplace of the Catholic Church and, arguably, Western civilization.

An American Breakfast for our Italian Friends

Apparently American cuisine has a reason to boast: breakfast. It turns out that my roommates had never tasted French toast (Hmm, maybe this is French? But even if so, I imagine it's been sufficiently Americanized) and the concept of peppers in a meal before noon sounded absolutely absurd to them. Yesterday evening, Ramòn and I got together to solve these problems. I prepared French toast (using Italian bread, of course) and Ramòn cooked scrambled eggs with ham, onions, and peppers. Claudia, one of my roommates, joined in the kitchen festivities by cooking us a special kind of lasagna prepared with unleavened Sardinian bread and lots of cheese. She also made a cake, as usual.

Claudia, Enrica (the roommate who actually shares my room), Danilo (Claudia’s friend), Ramòn, and I all ate together at 9pm. Our Italian friends, though slightly disturbed by placing fruit, lasagna, and scrambled eggs on the same plate at the same time, were impressed by the American food! As we were beginning dessert a couple of hours later, a few more of Claudia’s friends came over to say goodbye. They won’t be coming back from vacation until mid to late September. Stepping outside together, I learned that my apartment actually has both a see-saw and a Disneyland-tea-cup-style spinner! Last night, the basic joys of a children's playground surpassed all language barriers.

Framing the World a Bit Differently

I've been in Italy a little more than a month and I'm beginning to settle in. The cultural differences here are a bit like looking at the world through a new pair of glasses. The way we view things is still mostly the same, but these glasses don't sit quite the same way; they frame the world a bit differently, and maybe the lenses take a different tint when standing in the sun. Here is a collection of some of the most striking differences I've noticed between the US and Italy.

Hitting the books

Right now we're wrapping up a two-month period for the students of the University of Pisa. When they return, they’ll have to deal with one more month of exams in September before the school year picks up again. Interestingly, there is never a set date or time when students must take their finals. They choose any time in June, July, or September. Students can even elect to take an exam a year or more after they took their course! Exams are generally oral though they can also include a written component.

During their academic year, Italian students spend a lot more time in class than us. I debated educational methods with an Italian biomedical engineer: though I can’t imagine successfully synthesizing my engineering lessons without the p-sets that teach me how to apply what’s been taught in class, he was entirely of the opinion that in-class discussion is the optimal way to acquire an engineering education. Italian students do not have to deal with weekly p-sets, papers, or lovely lab reports. The concept, all too familiar at MIT, of all-nighters and sleep deprivation is completely foreign to them (literally!).

The importance of eating well

Here, a significant portion of daily life is devoted to food. Dinner alone can easily take a three-hour bite out of the evening. Whether their interest in eating led to the wonderful cuisine, or the cuisine to the interest, the stereotype holds: everything tastes better in Italy. Still, Italians have some habits that are tough to get used to. Take the meal times: Lunch does not start before 1pm, no matter how much my stomach might be rumbling by noon. Dinner often won’t get underway until 9pm (and when you have to commit three hours to the meal but still wake up at 6am, you may need to pre-game it with a late afternoon siesta). Italians also don’t load one plate with everything they intend to eat. They take their antipasto, then a first course, a second course, and finally coffee—which Italians drink in shot glasses at any time, day or night— and a dessert… which brings us to one of my favorite topics: Italian gelato. Words escape me. So far, these flavors have been the most memorable:

• Coco (coconut… one of my 2 favorite flavors for anything, ever and it’s so common here… Sadly, Italians have yet to be introduced to my other favorite flavor: pumpkin)
• Pompelmo (grapefruit)
• Frutti di bosco (mixed berries, an Italian specialty from what I gather)
• Bacio (chocolate hazelnut, literally “kiss”)
• Pignoli (pine nut)
• Bailey’s

What they’re missing:

1. Root beer—and consequently root beer floats

2. Fresh fruit juice. This one is beyond me. How could people with such a commitment to good food not sell any form of not-from-concentrate orange juice with pulp in a local supermarket?

3. Bagels. Despite all the amazing bread to be found in Italy, this specialty is entirely missing. The classically New York-style Jewish delis that I so love are nowhere to be found.

4. Peanut butter. Actually, you can find this in the local supermarket, but they only sell one brand and it’s only available in creamy. Furthermore, my roommates had never heard of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (prompting my youtube search of the peanut butter jelly time song. Good times.) This also means this culture has been deprived of my daily sustenance: peanut butter and banana sandwiches. I’ve been trying to adopt more Italian eating habits (later meals, different diet), but cutting these out of my routine has been a real sacrifice.

Getting from Point A to Point B

Italian streets just aren’t designed for modern vehicles. At least, not in the American sense. Vespas are as popular here as the stereotypes portray them to be, and smart cars are all the rage. The public transportation system in Pisa is not amazing—there’s no subway here—but the buses run regularly enough and are always fairly full. Sometimes a bus driver forgets to close the doors after a stop, or the bus decides to stop closing the doors on its own. It's always a funny surprise to be seated, or better yet standing, next to an open door and suddenly realize that you're no longer at a stand-still. Renting a car is also a possibility—one I may even look into after my international driver’s license is delivered next week!—but first, the challenge: in Italy, people only drive stick-shift. Fortunately, my lab mentor has offered to help me. And finally, one last tidbit: Who rides a bike in Italy? Answer: everyone. Men in suits, ladies in heels, young kids, old people, yes, anyone and everyone.

Smoking: a national past-time

So we’ve all heard Europeans smoke more, okay. But the dedication some Italians show to their addiction is really quite remarkable. I’ve seen Italians who step out of a restaurant between courses to light up, who lean out of trains when they stop at a station to get in a few puffs, and even some who ride their bikes one-handedly in order to get in their morning cigarette on the way to work. I’m impressed.

Working to live instead of living to work

Perhaps the most surprising element of life here in Italy is the amount of vacation and time off. As my lab mentor told me, in August, Italy closes. Yes, apart from the tourism industry, the country shuts down. We ran out of 10ml pipettes: too bad, the Italian company selling them won’t make any more shipments until September. As a college student, of course I assumed this vacation concept didn’t apply to me. But no, I was told I too am expected to take my two to three weeks of vacation. In fact, despite my protests, I cannot enter a laboratory during the week of Monday, August 11 through Friday, August 15. (August 15 is Ferragosto, the Italian national holiday.)

Weekends and evenings are also fairly sacred. There is no such thing as returning to lab to finish an experiment after dinner, and with the exception of some Saturday mornings, no one will work during the weekend. Of course this lifestyle could end up growing on me. I’ve had a lot more time for reading, picking up some side hobbies, and exploring Italy on weekends. Given that I recently learned my roommate owns a sewing machine, I’m also now on the hunt for a really good fabric store… this may require a trip to Milan sometime soon…

A Weekend of Shiny, Sparkly, Colorful Distractions: Hello Venice!

Thanks to the wonders of Facebook, this past weekend I made two new friends: Lauren and Kristyn (MIT ‘10s). After a couple hours of work on Saturday morning, I caught a train to Florence where we met, grabbed some lunch, and wandered through the city. We checked out the Ponte Vecchio and its environs. Ponte Vecchio was built in 1345 and is the only Florentine bridge to have survived World War II. It is distinctive because stores line its entire length, as was the style for bridges at the time of its construction. At 5pm, Lauren, Kristyn, and I attended mass in the famous Florentine Duomo, il Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore. Although more austere on the inside than the out, there was still some very impressive artwork within this church. The paintings in the church's dome, called Brunelleschi’s Dome, are remarkable. The construction of the dome was such a project that kitchens, bedrooms, and bathrooms were all built into the top of the church so that workers wouldn’t ever need to leave the dome while it was under construction. Talk about never being able to escape work!

The sun set as we traversed the Italian countryside, quickly approaching the Adriatic Sea. By nightfall we were in Venice. I shared the adventure of hunting for my hostel with three Chinese and two Turkish people, all trying to find a place to lay our weary heads. A couple of hours and many sets of directions later, we had some luck. I ended up sharing my room with those two Turkish students. One, a mechanical engineer, had just finished his year abroad (Erasmus) in Lille, France. The other, an architect, was finishing a backpacking trip across Western Europe. They’d only just met two days earlier in Florence though they attend the same school! In the confusion, we missed the fireworks that night for the Festa del Redentore, an annual celebration of the end of the 16^th century plague in Venice. However, we stayed up late talking over a bottle of Italian wine and the made the most of our evening.

The next morning, bright and early, I hit the streets, or rather canals, of Venice. I caught a boat to the island of Murano where I went to a glassblowing demonstration. Right in front of me, the man took a red-hot ball of glass out of the fire, pulled at it with a giant pair of tweezers, and within a minute had created a beautiful horse sculpture. I learned that Venetian glassmaking is a family business: there is not a single school for it on the island. All Murano glassblowers learn their trade through many years of apprenticeship. Glassmakers haven’t worked on the mainland of Venice for centuries, not since they were kicked out in 1292 for lighting the city in flames one too many times. Kristyn, Lauren, and I met that morning at the Museo Vetrario (Glass Museum), where we saw works of glass dating back as much as 2000 years. While touring the island that afternoon, I actually spotted a sculpture of a giant abacus made from Murano glass! Given the nature of the island’s commerce, the stores were just as impressive as the museum. The real challenge was to remember that I am a student, specifically one who has to deal with a terrible exchange rate.

Our day would not have been complete with a brief tour through the mainland. We visited Piazza San Marco, where we saw the Basilica di San Marco, another amazing Italian church. The giant bronze horse statues on the balcony were particularly impressive. Most of the time around Piazza San Marco was spent dodging tourists in quest of a quiet street on which to eat. However, we were frequently distracted from our mission by the shiny, sparkly, and colorful jewelry, decorations, and Venetian masks that crowded the windows of every shop.

As we sat on the edge of the canal at the train station that evening waiting for our train, we admired all the gondolas floating down the water, pushed by men in striped shirts, and filled with tourists serenaded by the requisite accordion player. All Venetian gondolas are black. The exact reason for this is uncertain, but may be due to a 17^th century ordinance passed to force the wealthy Venetians to stop their gondola-decorating wars. Kind of like MTV’s Pimp My Ride, just a few centuries too soon (and with a bit more bloodshed).

Vineyards, Trails, and the Big Blue Sea

On Friday night I bid my family farewell with one big, final dinner at a local restaurant. We were joined by my big sister (from Alpha Chi Omega), Leanne (MIT ’08). She spent that night at my apartment in Pisa and we woke bright and early to head out to Cinque Terre. After some misunderstandings of weekday/weekend train schedules and a long second breakfast at a local café, we made our way to Cinque Terre, riding first class! We lathered on the sunscreen, enjoyed our lunches, and spent the first couple of hours on the beach. The Mediterranean water did not disappoint and the sun felt wonderful. Eventually we hit the trails. Yesterday, we hiked from Monterosso to Vernazza, and then from Vernazza to Corniglia where we did some shopping, ate dinner, and ventured through a local vineyard. Unfortunately, the sunset was hidden by the clouds that evening. Late into the night we lounged under the stars on an outcropping of rocks in a cove slicing into a vineyard on the edge of Corniglia. We found ourselves alone with the waves like the heartbeat of the ocean splashing against our rocks. This morning we rose before sunrise but the clouds still shielded the sun. We hiked on towards Manarola to find the city sleeping in. We continued on to Riomaggiore, explored the town, ate breakfast at a small café, and caught a mid-morning train home. I think this one goes down in the books as one of the best AXΩ big-little sister bonding activities ever…

La Famiglia Repak in Italia

This week my family visited Italy! They spent their week here doing the tourist thing. (No, I have not yet submitted myself to a classic tourist-holding-up-the-Leaning-Tower photo. But I still have five and a half months…) They swung by my apartment on Sunday, were thoroughly impressed by the view from just outside my front door (see photo of me with grandparents), and then swept me off to their spacious mountain home in a remarkably large vehicle. This car served as our silent alarm to notify all local drivers that Americans were in the vicinity (because, come on, who else would select such a beast of a machine to transport 6 people?). I was stuck in lab while they toured Italy, but it was still cool to get to see my family on this side of the ocean!

My First Sagra!

What is a sagra, you ask? According to about.com, a sagra is defined as "a local fair, usually a celebration of the bounties of the earth." And I just returned home from a sagra celebrating the food of Sardinia. I went to this sagra with a large group of people from my lab. The sagra was held out in the country, right alongside a giant sunflower field. By 9pm, I really had no idea quite what to order (and was so hungry I could hardly think straight! How do these Italians all eat so late?), but as I've never tasted a kind of fish I didn't like, I figured I'd be safe with that. While the fish was indeed delicious, I'd been expecting a hunk of meat, not a whole fish still closely resembling the animal it recently was! I've also learned that patience is a virtue. Italians don't just order a meal. They order their appetizers... then their first plate... then their second plate... then a dessert... then coffee and after-dinner liquer. And in between each course, there is lots of time for chatting. If you make the mistake of only ordering a second plate, you may find yourself going crazy in the meantime. But live and learn, right?

The Things We Take for Granted

My grandmother was hospitalized today. My Mémé: a woman who braved a new country to make a better life for herself and her progeny, the woman who sparked my passion for the study of French, the woman whose name I call my own.

I may never have another chance to tell her I love her, to hold her hand, or to give her one last au revoir. It's all those little things taken for granted that living overseas can steal.

Take the time to tell people you love them. You never know which chance may be your last.

The First Italian National Conference on Bioengineering

Last week was an excellent work week. Finally having finished reading my small heap of papers, I stretched on my first pair of latex gloves and began my wet lab work. For now, I'm in a small lab in the Cisanello Hospital in the outskirts of Pisa. Here, I am making small PLGA (clear gel) microspheres (diameter on the order of 1 micrometer) that will slowly release a chemoattractant (drug) over the course of two weeks in order to chemically direct neuronal growth in Petri dishes.

On Thursday, I had the good fortune to attend the first ever Italian National Conference on Bioengineering! My heart-rate skyrocketed yesterday morning: I walked into the Neural Engineering poster session on the third and final day of this conference. I finally met some of the scientists whose work had lured me away from France and to this country whose language I hardly know. There were so many amazing research presentations. I've since been in touch with one of these researchers and might even take a weekend trip to check out just how he uses cultures of rat cortical neurons to control his robots. (Amazing!)

Independence Day as an Expatriate

For the Fourth of July, my Pisan MIT friends and I decided to share a bit of American culture with my Italian roommate Claudia (in the photo) and her friends. We bought burgers, sausages, and watermelon. As the meat sizzled, I bit into a juicy slice of watermelon and a couple of cold beers were cracked open: I felt truly American. However, as somehow striving for perfectly authentic American cuisine while living in Italy didn’t sound like the best idea, the burger and sausage buns were sliced from loaves of thick Italian bread.

Chris, Ramòn, and I were excited to realize that Camp Darby, the largest US military base outside of the US (and only a few kilometers from the center of Pisa, on the Mediterranean), would be open to the public to enjoy fireworks and celebrate our Independence Day! Sadly, the winds were so strong that no fireworks could be released. I was heartbroken, but assuaged by the feeling of the sand between my toes. Bringing back memories of my days in track and field (I was a triple and long jumper), pretty soon I had an irresistible urge to slip off my flip flops and run freely. At the water's edge, I came to an incredible realization: the Mediterranean is very warm! I starting laughing and running through the water as the wind blew through my hair. I ran until I could hardly breathe. Then I stopped and just stood there staring out into the dark waters for a long time. (Of course, from time to time I’d get hit by a particularly large wave, burst into laughter, and have to splash around a bit.) I've never felt such wonderfully warm sea water in the cool evening air. Last night while celebrating American independence, I fell in love with my Italian life.

Chianti: the Wine and the Region

On July 3, I left lab a bit earlier than usual, caught a train to Florence with Chris and Ramòn (MIT '09s), met Adam and Heather (MIT '07), and drove through the Tuscan countryside in Chianti. As the sunlight began to wane, we randomly turned into a side street to look for a local winery and perhaps a field in which to have a picnic. We inadvertently stumbled across one of the smallest wineries in Tuscany. There, a wonderful woman who spoke English quite well took a break out of her evening to teach us all about Chianti, give us a wine tasting session--her 2004 vintage reserve was remarkable-- and tell us the story of how she ventured into this romantic career. Afterwards, we drove into the setting sun and enjoyed the scenery through the rolling hills of Chianti. Eventually, we found a small medieval castle and fortressed town. After exploring for a bit, we decided to picnic in the outskirts of the village on a set of steeply angled, very large stairs. Underneath the stars, looking out across the Tuscan vineyards, we shared a delicious meal. The following day, Heather and Adam moved to Germany. My memories of the short time we shared together are filled with laughter and big, broad grins. I wish them all the best as their adventures take them across Europe and the world.